American Jesus in Charlotte
Special Edition of The Good Maverick Letters
Hello, everyone. My name is Will, and I’m planning to launch a new project soon called The Good Maverick Letters. More info about this endeavor can be found here.
Before I do, I wanted to share a one-off piece I wrote in response to Operation “Charlotte’s Web” in my hometown this week.
If you find the piece moving, I would be grateful if you’d consider passing this along to others.
Thank you for reading,
American Jesus in Charlotte
November 19, 2025 — Charlotte, N.C.
American Jesus sits in the back of the unmarked SUV, eyes peering through the darkly tinted windows looking for the next “illegal” to stop. His machine gun rests heavily on his lap, and he looks down to rub off a smudge on the barrel with his thick, green glove. It’s Day Five of Operation “Charlotte’s Web”, and so far the results have been promising.
“That van looks suspicious,” the agent in the front seat says, dark sunglasses concealing the direction he’s looking. The driver punches his foot on the gas pedal, lurching the vehicle ahead at a white 15-passenger van, the kind typically used by carpenters, roofers, handymen and all kinds of tradesmen. They’re ubiquitous in the working class neighborhood of Charlotte they drive through.
They veer sharply into the lane next to the van and vigorously get the attention of the driver, a darker skinned man with specks of white paint visible around his eyes—evidence of the kind of labor he devotes himself to each day. American Jesus can see the horror in the man’s eyes even through a set of tinted windows on a sunny day. His heart starts beating faster.
A moment later both the SUV and the white van pull into a laundromat parking lot that is strangely empty for this time of day.
American Jesus leaps out of the car, his gloved hands grasping the weapon tightly as he joins the other agents jumping out of the SUV. “Where are you from?” the agent who was driving yells loudly through the closed window of the van. The man’s face goes pale while his eyes dart from agent to agent before shifting slowly to the passenger seat where a young girl is seated beside him. She begins to cry.
“Roll down your window!” The agents are crowding in closer, their bodies now pressed up against the door of the van as the man shifts nervously in his seat, paralyzed with fear.
Bystanders have gathered, and by now a few of them are recording and livestreaming this tense exchange. A few of the millions of followers of American Jesus have found the feed online and are watching with glee. They see not a man in the car, but someone much worse—an illegal. A criminal. A leech on American society finally getting what he deserves.
On the livestream, someone comments with a verse from Proverbs: “The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a ruler with discernment and knowledge maintains order.” Their hero, American Jesus, brings the sword upon those the devil has sent to our country to invade, take and destroy. They can’t look away at their beloved hero clad in camo.
Emboldened by the moment, American Jesus lifts up his rifle and forcefully uses the base of the gun to smash the van window into thousands of little knife-like shards. A few pieces of glass slice through the man’s cheek, and drops of blood mix with the white specks of paint that sit gently underneath his brown, terrified eyes. The young girl’s cries from the passenger seat grow into piercing screams as she watches the masked agents rip the man out of the van and throw him aggressively to the broken pavement below.
“Yes! Get ‘em! Thank you, Officer! Doing the Lord’s work!” The comments pour in as the livestream gains more and more viewers. Turns out American Jesus has many fans.
The four agents tower over the man lying limply on the ground, hiding his entire body from the sun like great oak trees casting a dark shadow on the forest floor below. “I’m going to say it again—Where are you from?!”
By now, the few bystanders have turned into an unruly crowd of onlookers, and the sound of whistles and expletives being shouted are quickly turning the scene into a frenzy. Someone has taken the girl from the front seat and is holding her tightly on the edge of the crowd as she screams, “Daddy!! Daddy! Somebody help him!”
American Jesus doesn’t seem to hear her cries. She is invisible to him and the countless more watching on the livestream. She is—at least probably—an illegal herself. “We’ll deal with her later”, he thinks.
The man on the ground still hasn’t said a word. The oak trees over him grow more restless by the moment and start to kick him with great force, their heavy boots landing with might into the side of a man who clearly has no will or desire to fight back. American Jesus is growing impatient, so he tears at the paint-stained shirt wrapping the man’s chest like a sheet.
As he rips off the shirt, something familiar appears underneath. A small crucifix hanging on a thin, silver chain slides gently off the man’s chest onto the asphalt with the familiar soft clinking sound that most jewelry makes.
He pauses to look at the crucifix, and beside him an older woman collapses to the ground in a frenzied state of prayer with a shrieking mix of screams and groans that are strangely familiar to him.
Another agent barks from nearby: “He’s got a passport.” Found in the van, tucked between the girl’s pink backpack and her father’s leather toolbelt, is the little blue book with the seal of an eagle on the front.
One by one, the agents get back in the SUV, their shoulders seemingly falling a bit lower than they were when they stood like oak trees moments before. American Jesus stays back.
He looks at the bloodied man with the torn shirt on the ground below. He looks at the girl with her little arms now wrapped securely around his neck, her tears mixing with the blood from the cuts and the white paint on his face.
He stares at the rifle in his hand. He glances up at the crowd around him—screaming, crying, recording, chanting, and growing ever angrier by the second.
Somewhere on the livestream, a follower comments, “You’ll get one next time, Officers! God bless you!”
“Let’s go, Jesus!” a masked man shouts through the open door of the nearby SUV.
Before leaving, he looks down at the man one last time.
He sees the cross hanging from his neck.
And a little blue book.
Covered in chips of white paint.